A self destrcutive and rebellious man will make the tools that eventually destroyes him self.

An Oxford academic is warning that humanity runs the risk of creating super intelligent computers that eventually destroy us all, even when specifically instructed not to harm people.

Dr Stuart Armstrong, of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, has predicted a future where machines run by artificial intelligence become so indispensable in human lives they eventually make us redundant and take over.

And he says his alarming vision could happen as soon as the next few decades.

Dr Armstrong said: “Humans steer the future not because we’re the strongest or the fastest, but because we’re the smartest.

“When machines become smarter than humans, we’ll be handing them the steering wheel.”

The multistate training operation Jade Helm 15 will begin next month, and plenty of Texans still seem to think that this is all an elaborate ruse and the federal government is about to take over Texas — a state that is already part of a larger country that the federal government oversees. It wasn’t clear how many people thought that the U.S. military was building tunnels under abandoned Walmarts FEMA camps. Thanks to a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, we now know that the answer is: “More than a few!”

Forty-four percent of Texas voters — including 31 percent of Democrats — think that it is very or somewhat likely that the federal government is sending troops to Texas and other states so it can impose martial law; 43 percent think it is likely that the federal government just wants to take their guns.

Strangely enough, slightly fewer Texan voters thought that it was a good idea that Governor Greg Abbott sent the Texas State Guard to monitor the exercises, saying that it is “important that Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights, and civil liberties will not be infringed.” Thirty-nine percent of registered voters — and 85 percent of tea party Republicans — supported this move, while 32 percent had no opinion whatsoever. Although the difference between the number of people who think the government is coming to turn Texas into a socialist wasteland and those who think it is a good idea to monitor the military is within the margin of error, there’s always the possibility that a very small number of Texans think the government is coming to impose martial law and are ready to submit and declare allegiance, federalism be damned.

If these people exist, we assume they might be friends with the people who sent aluminum-foil hat kits to Greg Abbott’s office instead of just filing a letter to complain about the Texas State Guard being deployed.

Tens of thousands of Fukushima residents remain in temporary housing more than four years after the horrific disaster of March 2011. Some areas on the outskirts of Fukushima have officially reopened to former residents, but many of those former residents are reluctant to return home because of widespread distrust of government claims that it is okay and safe.

Part of this reluctance has to do with radiation’s symptoms. It is insidious because it cannot be detected by human senses. People are not biologically equipped to feel its power, or see, or hear, touch or smell it (Caldicott). Not only that, it slowly accumulates over time in a dastardly fashion that serves to hide its effects until it is too late.

Chernobyl’s Destruction Mirrors Fukushima’s Future

As an example of how media fails to deal with disaster blowback, here are some Chernobyl facts that have not received enough widespread news coverage: Over one million (1,000,000) people have already died from Chernobyl’s fallout.

Additionally, the Rechitsa Orphanage in Belarus has been caring for a very large population of deathly sick and deformed children. Children are 10 to 20 times more sensitive to radiation than adults.

Zhuravichi Children’s Home is another institution, among many, for the Chernobyl-stricken: “The home is hidden deep in the countryside and, even today, the majority of people in Belarus are not aware of the existence of such institutions” (Source: Chernobyl Children’s Project-UK).

One million (1,000,000) is a lot of dead people. But, how many more will die? Approximately seven million (7,000,000) people in the Chernobyl vicinity were hit with one of the most potent exposures to radiation in the history of the Atomic Age.

The exclusion zone around Chernobyl is known as “Death Valley.” It has been increased from 30 to 70 square kilometres. No humans will ever be able to live in the zone again. It is a permanent “dead zone.”

Additionally, over 25,000 died and 70,000 disabled because of exposure to extremely dangerous levels of radiation in order to help contain Chernobyl. Twenty percent of those deaths were suicides, as the slow agonizing “death march of radiation exposure” was too much to endure.

Fukushima is literally a time bomb in quiescence. Another powerful quake and all hell could break loose. Also, it is not even close to being under control. Rather, it is totally out of control. According to Dr. Caldicott, “It’s still possible that Tokyo may have to be evacuated, depending upon how things go.” Imagine that!

According to Japan Times as of March 11, 2015: “There have been quite a few accidents and problems at the Fukushima plant in the past year, and we need to face the reality that they are causing anxiety and anger among people in Fukushima, as explained by Shunichi Tanaka at the Nuclear Regulation Authority. Furthermore, Mr. Tanaka said, there are numerous risks that could cause various accidents and problems.”

Even more ominously, Seiichi Mizuno, a former member of Japan’s House of Councillors (Upper House of Parliament, 1995-2001) in March 2015 said: “The biggest problem is the melt-through of reactor cores… We have groundwater contamination… The idea that the contaminated water is somehow blocked in the harbor is especially absurd. It is leaking directly into the ocean. There’s evidence of more than 40 known hotspot areas where extremely contaminated water is flowing directly into the ocean… We face huge problems with no prospect of solution.” (Source: Nuclear Hotseat #194: Fukushima 4th Anniversary – Voices from Japan, March 10, 2015, http://www.nuclearhotseat.com/2468/)

At Fukushima, each reactor required one million gallons of water per minute for cooling, but when the tsunami hit, the backup diesel generators were drowned. Units 1, 2, and 3 had meltdowns within days. There were four hydrogen explosions. Thereafter, the melting cores burrowed into the container vessels, maybe into the earth.

According to Dr. Caldicott, “One hundred tons of terribly hot radioactive lava has already gone into the earth or somewhere within the container vessels, which are all cracked and broken.” Nobody really knows for sure where the hot radioactive lava resides. The scary unanswered question: Is it the China Syndrome?

Following the meltdown, the Japanese government did not inform people of the ambient levels of radiation that blew back onto the island. Unfortunately and mistakenly, people fled away from the reactors to the highest radiation levels on the island at the time.

As the disaster happened, enormous levels of radiation hit Tokyo. The highest radiation detected in the Tokyo Metro area was in Saitama with cesium radiation levels detected at 919,000 becquerel (Bq) per square meter, a level almost twice as high as Chernobyl’s “permanent dead zone evacuation limit of 500,000 Bq” (source: Radiation Defense Project). For that reason, Dr. Caldicott strongly advises against travel to Japan and recommends avoiding Japanese food.

Even so, post the Fukushima disaster, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed an agreement with Japan that the U.S. would continue importing Japanese foodstuff. Therefore, Dr. Caldicott suggests people not vote for Hillary Clinton. One reckless dangerous precedent is enough for her.

According to Arnie Gundersen, an energy advisor with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, as reported in The Canadian on August 15, 2011: “The US government has come up with a decision at the highest levels of the State Department, as well as other departments who made a decision to downplay Fukushima. In April, the month after the powerful tsunami and earthquake crippled Japan including its nuclear power plant, Hillary Clinton signed a pact with Japan that she agreed there is no problem with Japanese food supply and we will continue to buy them. So, we are not sampling food coming in from Japan.”

However, in stark contrast to the United States, in Europe Angela Merkel, PhD physics, University of Leipzig and current chancellor of Germany is shutting down all nuclear reactors because of Fukushima.

Maybe an advanced degree in physics makes the difference in how a leader approaches the nuclear power issue. It certainly looks that way when comparing/contrasting the two pantsuit-wearing leaders, Chancellor Merkel and former secretary of state Clinton.

After the Fukushima blow up, ambient levels of radiation in Washington State went up 40,000 times above normal, but according to Dr. Caldicott, the U.S. media does not cover the “ongoing Fukushima mess.” So, who would really know?

Dr. Caldicott ended her speech on Sept. 2014 by saying: “In Fukushima, it is not over. Everyday, four hundred tons of highly radioactive water pours into the Pacific and heads towards the U.S. Because the radiation accumulates in fish, we get that too. The U.S. government is not testing the water, not testing the fish, and not testing the ambient air. Also, people in Japan are eating radiation every day.”

Furthermore, according to Dr. Caldicott: “Rainwater washes over the nuclear cores into the Pacific. There is no way they can get to those cores, men die, robots get fried. Fukushima will never be solved. Meanwhile, people are still living in highly radioactive areas.”

Fukushima will never be solved because “men die” and “robots get fried.” By the sounds of it, Fukushima is a perpetual radiation meltdown scenario that literally sets on the edge of a bottomless doomsday pit, in waiting to be nudged over.

UN All-Clear Report

A UN (UNSCEAR) report on April 2, 2014 on health impacts of the Fukushima accident concluded that any radiation-induced effects would be too small to identify. People were well protected and received “low or very low” radiation doses. UNSCEAR gave an all-clear report.

Rebuttal of the UNSCEAR report by the German affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War d/d July 18, 2014 takes a defiant stance in opposition to the UN report, to wit: “The Fukushima nuclear disaster is far from over. Despite the declaration of ‘cold shutdown’ by the Japanese government in December 2011, the crippled reactors have not yet achieved a stable status and even UNSCEAR admits that emissions of radioisotopes are continuing unabated. 188 TEPCO is struggling with an enormous amount of contaminated water, which continues to leak into the surrounding soil and sea. Large quantities of contaminated cooling water are accumulating at the site. Failures in the makeshift cooling systems are occurring repeatedly. The discharge of radioactive waste will most likely continue for a long time.”

“Both the damaged nuclear reactors and the spent fuel ponds contain vast amounts of radioactivity and are highly vulnerable to further earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons and human error. Catastrophic releases of radioactivity could occur at any time and eliminating this risk will take many decades… It is impossible at this point in time to come up with an exact prognosis of the effects that the Fukushima nuclear disaster will have on the population in Japan… the UNSCEAR report represents a systematic underestimation and conjures up an illusion of scientific certainty that obscures the true impact of the nuclear catastrophe on health and the environment.”

Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press (AP), June 12, 2015: “Four years after an earthquake and tsunami destroyed Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, the road ahead remains riddled with unknowns… Experts have yet to pinpoint the exact location of the melted fuel inside the three reactors and study it, and still need to develop robots capable of working safely in such highly radioactive conditions. And then there’s the question of what to do with the waste… serious doubts about whether the cleanup can be completed within 40 years.”

“Although the Chernobyl accident was a terrible accident, it only involved one reactor. With Fukushima, we have the minimum [of] 3 reactors that are emitting dangerous radiation. The work involved to deal with this accident will take tens of years, hundreds of years,” Prof. Hiroaki Koide (retired), Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, April 25, 2015. “It could be that some of the fuel could actually have gone through the floor of the containment vessel as well… What I’ve just described is very, very logical for anyone who understands nuclear engineering or nuclear energy,” which dreadfully spells-out: THE CHINA SYNDROME.

According to the Smithsonian, April 30, 2015: “Birds Are in a Tailspin Four Years After Fukushima: Bird species are in sharp decline, and it is getting worse over time… Where it’s much, much hotter, it’s dead silent. You’ll see one or two birds if you’re lucky.” Developmental abnormalities of birds include cataracts, tumors, and asymmetries. Birds are spotted with strange white patches on their feathers.

Maya Moore, a former NHK news anchor, authored a book about the disaster: The Rose Garden of Fukushima (Tankobon, 2014), about the roses of Mr. Katsuhide Okada. Today, the garden has perished: “It’s just poisoned wasteland. The last time Mr. Okada actually went back there, he found baby crows that could not fly, that were blind. Mutations have begun with animals, with birds.”

The Rose Garden of Fukushima features a collection of photos of an actual garden that existed in Fukushima, Japan. Boasting over 7500 bushes of roses and 50-thousand visitors a year, the Garden was rendered null and void in an instant due to the triple disaster — earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown.

The forward to Maya’s book was written by John Roos, former US Ambassador to Japan 2009-13: “The incredible tale of Katz Okada and his Fukushima rose garden was told here by Maya Moore… gives you a small window into what the people of Tohoku faced.”

Roos’ “small window” could very well serve as a metaphor for a huge black hole smack dab in the heart of civilization. Similarly, Fukushima is a veritable destruction machine that consumes everything in its path, and beyond, and its path is likely to grow. For certain, it is not going away.

Police, prosecutors will discuss enforcement plans for July 1 event

Curry said he believes the new law is ill-advised and problematic. That said, he also stressed that RFRA is not “a legitimate defense to committing a crime.”

Police can’t ignore violations

Hite said police can’t ignore Levin flaunting the law under the guise of religion.

That means everyone in attendance next week is subject to criminal charges, he said, even if they do not partake of the church’s sacrament.

Curry said observers could be charged with visiting a common nuisance. Those who smoke the drug could be charged with possession of marijuana. Both charges are class B misdemeanors, which carry a penalty of up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Curry and Hite said Friday they were announcing their plans in an effort to dissuade Levin and his followers from going through with wide-spread marijuana use at the service. Hite said his department would have police on the church property, including possibly inside the sanctuary itself.

“I think it’s important to know that we’re not trying to create a police state,” Hite said. “I think reasonably intelligent people will stay away, quite frankly. But as with any other events we happen to have in our city, we’re prepared for it.”

Curry listed six considerations he said he recently shared with Levin — and wants others who might attend the service to keep in mind.

In addition to making arrests for those who possess or are simply in the presence of marijuana that is being used, Curry said, police will also be looking for impaired drivers, those with open warrants and those who are at the service in violation of a probation order. Curry also cautioned that minors should not be present if marijuana is being used, adding that such a violation has “numerous implications.”

Curry and Hite said police and prosecutors are duty bound to uphold Indiana’s drug laws and cannot ignore the event that has been widely promoted in the news and on social media. They also are disturbed that they have to expend valuable manpower on this event, when there are many other more pressing needs for law enforcement resources.

Curry added Levin’s church is a direct result of the state’s RFRA law, and renewed an earlier call for legislators to repeal the law which he sees as unneeded and the result of political posturing.

“We anticipated that (RFRA) could be asserted as a defense to criminal prosecution,” he said. “As with any defense, our office will address the argument within the context of the case in which it is presented.”

The prosecutor said he has met twice with Levin to discuss alternatives to making mass arrests at the service next week, such as making his point on a smaller scale involving just one or two people challenging the law.

“I understand completely that what (Levin) is doing is using RFRA as a vehicle to essentially advocate for what he’s advocated for all along, and that is the legalization of marijuana,” Curry said. “But until he and others convince the legislature otherwise, then it’s a crime.”

Curry also dismissed concerns that the attendees of next week’s Church of Cannabis service would be treated differently than others who are cited for marijuana possession – though he added that the city’s advance notice of the event did present a change in how they plan on enforcing the law.

“Individuals are cited for criminal offenses when they are observed, whether it’s at the Indy 500 or rock concerts,” Curry said. “What is different here is that we’ve been given notice that this is going to occur. From our perspective, it would be entirely the wrong message that we would not react to that.”

Hite said the church is not right for Indianapolis, adding he and his officers have talked to drug dealers who are “appalled” by the planned service next week.

“Those who deal drugs for a living have said to us, ‘Listen. We’re trying to get out of the game. You’re telling us to get out, chief,'” Hite explained. “How can we allow someone to willingly violate the law?”

Keeping the lawyers happy

Levin said he is unfazed by who might show up at the service Wednesday, including law enforcement officials

“I don’t have a problem with that,” he said. “You want to come pray? Come pray. You better be on the guest list to get into the building, though, because we’ve already got this thing filled.”

The church plans to have a tent to accommodate overflow from the relatively small church building. What Levin described as “ushers” — who sound more like security — will screen people entering the building. The church also will have legal representation on site for the inaugural service.

A woman at the church Friday, wearing a shirt with a peace symbol on it, scoffed at Curry’s suggestion for Levin to scale down whatever might trigger a legal battle.

“Bill doesn’t do anything on a small scale,” she said. “I’ve known him for 35 years.”

Levin confirmed Curry’s suggestion but characterized it as being asked “to fall on the sword and no one else do it.”

“I believe in religious freedom and I will never tell my congregants what not to do,” Levin said. “I will warn them of what might happen. If you’re on probation, they might nail you. If you’re there with a kid, they might get CPS on you. … This is civil disobedience in its finest form while we’re celebrating a beautiful birth of a new religion.”

Levin appears to be doing as much as he can to protect the church legally. He has non-profit religious status certified by the Internal Revenue Service. He made sure the church building conforms to safety codes. He’s not allowing anyone under 21 into the sanctuary, where marijuana will be smoked at the end of the ceremony. And he is not selling or distributing the drug; its a bring-your-own event.

While Levin said he would prefer that officials leave him and church members alone, he’s not about to back down from a legal fight.

“I’d just as soon not do it. Am I afraid of it? No. Not at all. I’m sorry, I’m right,” he said. “I will defend my beliefs as long as it takes and as far as it takes.”

Any decision the state makes on religious laws — including whether the First Church of Cannabis is a legitimate religion — “they’re going to have to be very committed to, and that goes across the board,” Levin said. “Because what’s good for one religion is good for all.”

Legal experts wary

Whether Levin and his new church find protection under RFRA is a complicated and cloudy question, according to legal experts, who said it likely will be up to the state’s Supreme Court to decide.

At a forum on RFRA this week at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, three experts generally agreed Levin was likely to lose in his effort to use the law to protect followers’ marijuana use from prosecution.

Around the country over the last 25 years, most other attempts to use the federal RFRA to avoid drug charges have been unsuccessful — even though that law was enacted after the U.S. Supreme Court failed to uphold the religious freedom of a Native American to use peyote, an illegal drug, in a spiritual ritual.

Douglas A. Berman, a professor at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, was a little more optimistic.

“If and when you robustly protect religious freedoms, you have to be prepared that there will be people who claim religions that may not be what you had in mind,” he explained.

He said most of the other unsuccessful test cases involved defendants who invoked RFRA after being arrested on drug charges.

“It is relatively rare,” he said, “a defendant could have done the front-end work to show the drug use came after a religious commitment rather than you were using drugs and then you conveniently got a religious commitment on the back end.”

Berman said the key to Levin having a chance to prevail in court involved “doing the things — and it sounds like he already is starting to — that makes this look much more like religiosity than an excuse” for drug use. Ministry actions, such as assisting families with children who have medical conditions and need marijuana to address those health problems, would help prove it is a religion, he said.

To win in court on a RFRA claim, Levin would need to overcome two hurdles, said Donald L Beschle, professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago.

First, he would need to convince the court that what they are doing is actually motivated by a religious belief.

But even if Levin can establish his church is entitled to some protections under RFRA, Beschle said, the state can still attempt to justify arresting church members for using marijuana. They key would be the state establishing it has a compelling public safety interest — and that the denial of a RFRA exemption is necessary to protect that interest.

The court could duck the religious question altogether, he said, and focus solely on the compelling interest argument.

“In a close case, the court may say for the sake of argument, ‘we will accept this as a religion,’ then move onto the next test (compelling interest),” he said.

But, he acknowledged, Levin is facing an uphill battle.

“I would not give it much of a chance of succeeding on a constitutional RFRA claim,” he said. “I don’t think the court will get out ahead of the legislature on deciding there is no longer a compelling interest (for the state to prohibit marijuana use).”

Call Tim Evans at (317) 444-6204 and follow him on Twitter: @starwatchtim

To submit a legal/professional nursing question for future consideration, write to the editor at syox@medscape.net(Include “Ask the Expert” in subject line.)

Question

Can I be fired for using marijuana at home or for using recreational marijuana on my day off, when recreational use is legal in my state?

Response from Carolyn Buppert, MSN, JDHealthcare attorney

Fired for Use of Medical Marijuana at Home?

May an employer fire a healthcare professional for use of marijuana for a medical reason, when the employee has a medical marijuana card, medical marijuana is legal in the employee’s state, and the employee uses it off-site and on his or her own time?

It looks like the answer is “yes.” An employee may be fired for legal use of medical marijuana. On June 15, 2015, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld Dish Network’s firing of a technology worker who was using marijuana for a medical purpose and tested positive on a random drug screen. Use of medical marijuana is legal in Colorado.

In that case, the employee, who is paralyzed from the chest down, uses marijuana at night to treat spasms and seizures. He was tested at work, was positive for marijuana, and the employer fired him, in keeping with the company’s drug-free workplace policy. The employee sued the employer, saying he wasn’t accused of being high on the job, he had good job reviews, the testing was random, and the firing violated the state’s “lawful activities” statute. Colorado’s lower courts held that the firing was legal, and the case went to the state Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court said, “Employees who engage in an activity such as medical marijuana use that is permitted by state law but unlawful under federal law are not protected by the lawful activities statute.”[1]

Washington, DC – infoZine – Scripps Howard Foundation Wire – A growing list of contenders have tossed their hats in the political ring for the 2016 race to the White House. But the official tally spans longer than the 17 most talked-about political brands of this cycle.

Like over 400 candidates longer.

As of Thursday, 419 Americans seeking the presidency had filed a Form 2 statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission. In the last week alone, 18 new candidates have joined the lineup.

Jill Stein, a 2016 Green Party presidential candidate, discusses her “Power to the People Plan” campaign platform during a press conference Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington. SFHWire photo by Quentin Misiag

Thomas Keister, a blogger and author from Clarksville, Ind., is lighting up his long-shot White House bid on two decidedly different levels: promoting marijuana bong rips and trolling New York business magnate Donald Trump on Twitter.

Over 1,000 miles away, Silvia Stagg of Miami is mounting her campaign on the niche topic of life-extension. Stagg favors expanded research and medicinal techniques in hospitals that would slow or reverse the human aging process.

William Richardson of Las Vegas registered with the FEC under the Helluva Party.

Under the National Born Citizen Party, there are Christopher Strunk and Harold Van Allen, both of New York State.

There’s no deadline to file as a candidate with the FEC, but states have explicit filing deadlines so they can prepare ballots.

Politicians officially transition from presumptive to declared candidate when they send in FEC forms.

“You can file at any time, but once you raise or spend $5,000, you’re required to file,” Christian Hilland, an FEC spokesman, said. The Constitution says presidents must be at least 35 years old when they take office and be natural born U.S. citizens.

Forty-five states and the District of Columbia allow presidential write-in candidates. Hawaii, Nevada, South Dakota, South Carolina and Oklahoma do not. By sheer number, these underdog candidates have 2016’s most popular pols surrounded.

On the other hand, most lack the deep-pocket allies who can reel in big dollars, according to a review of FEC records. Take Keister, 39, the founder of DasUberBlog! “I have not raised a single dollar since declaring on Jan. 1 that I was getting into this,” said Keister, the lone candidate running in the American Marijuana Party. Keister is one distant contender with a noticeable social media presence. He has more Twitter followers than Chaffee, the former Rhode Island senator and governor who launched his bid June 3. Asked about which of the leading pols he and his campaign platform could beat, Keister fired off: “Most of them.” Several, including Keister, said they plan to skip Iowa and New Hampshire, a pair of the early presidential picking states seen as crucial to locking up early voter momentum. “I have not raised a single dollar since declaring on Jan. 1 that I was getting into this,” Keister said. Keister’s launch came largely from what he called a prime example of government gridlock: Construction of the new Ohio River Bridges Project in greater Louisville, Ky., that was the culmination of 50 years of legal wrangling.

And if it seems that interest in running for title of America’s leading political leader has surged in recent years, that’s because it has. The number of candidates has already surpassed the 2012 election list, when 417 people filed during the two-year presidential reporting process. In 2004, 224 people filed as a presidential candidates. Four years later, that number grew to 367, an increase of more than 60 percent. Leonard Steinhorn, a professor of public communication and history at American University, attributes the climb over the last four election cycles to the ease of information access spurred largely by the growth in mobile email and the “sharing society.”

“This is the sort of the media age we’re living in where everybody has a chance to tell their story,” said Steinhorn, whose expertise includes the presidency, strategic communication and the media. “Does it mean it they have a prayer to win? No, not at all.”

Although they are dark horse choices, some of these lesser-known candidates have found some success in past political pursuits. Vermin Supreme of New Hampshire, placed third in the New Hampshire Democratic primary in 2012 with 833 votes. Supreme, who is known for wearing a boot as a hat and carrying a large toothbrush, hinged his campaign on zombie apocalypse awareness and time travel research.

“I’m not holding my breath, but I’m not discounting it either,” Stein said.

Take Jill Stein, a darling of the Green Party. On Tuesday she launched her 2016 bid in an attempt to rekindle the trail she tread four years ago.

“I’m not holding my breath, but I’m not discounting it either,” Stein, a physician, said of her pursuit, dubbed the “Power to the People Plan.” She announced in an address to reporters at the National Press Club. Stein’s newest platform is based mainly on the Green Party New Deal, an ambitious road map for domestic energy independence. It would provide millions of jobs by transitioning to 100 percent clean renewable energy by 2030, she said.

And then there’s Stagg, who said political alliances with high-level Republicans are the necessary backbone for gaining real political traction. Stagg said she has spent years courting Rubio, Paul and Fiorina at conservative meet-ups, including the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. But now, she says she’s ready to take them on in her own attempt to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

“I have Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, who will never institute socioeconomic programs,” Stagg, a backer of raising the U.S. minimum wage equal to an annual salary of $100,000, said. “It’s easy to say, ‘Hi how are you, Hillary?’ and before you know it, they’ve got your cash in their hand.”

Should her bid take hold, Stagg said she would make the American dollar the worldwide currency, enact a flat federal income tax of 10 percent and work to eliminate poverty in the U.S. While many long-shot choices have kept to establishing their brands on social media exclusively, some, including Arthur Herbert Brooks Jr., have created websites to help foster a stronger following. His site has all the basics of a typical online presidential presence. A tagline, “Everyday People for America,” is clearly defined, and donation tabs and an official campaign announcement video dot the page. However the website features stock images and incomplete details, including broken links.

In his June 8 filing to the FEC, Paul DeLong of Williamsport, Pa., outlined his former job as a grassroots team leader. He claimed he is a veteran campaign operative for the Bush political family. In a letter to FEC officials, DeLong said: “I feel that I am more than capable of running my own campaign at this time once I announce myself to some Republican Committees. I am hoping that one of them may pick me up.”

In the face of disappointing support, at least one politician has decided to pull out of the pursuit.

Brian Cole, a Pennsylvania Republican who rolled out his 2016 presidential plan five years ago, recently disbanded the endeavor. Cole said he will now direct his attention to becoming a U.S. ambassador to Iceland, Chile, Spain, Norway or Madagascar.

But with party names such as American Marijuana Party and Democratic-Farm-Labor, these far less known candidates say they’ve got some political bite to them and aren’t backing down. At least, not yet.

“The only problem I have is getting myself a vice president,” Stagg said.

Sheree Krider This is what the FDA and DEA have for us. Instead of repealing the laws on “Cannabis” and “Cannabis Abuse” They have CODES to charge your insurance company for and 3 Million Dollars to PHARMA to come up with a new DRUG (cleared by the FDA of course) to COMBAT MARIJUANA ADDICTION — This is nonsense at its best!

THE PROTECTION OF COMMERCE IN THE FORM OF PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND THEY WILL SELL IT TO YOU AS IF THEY ARE “HELPING YOU” COMBAT ADDICTION. It will additionally be mandated that those brought into the welfare or child protective services or psychiatric medical care be forced to succumb to the use of this drug (not unlike what is being done now with anti-depressants and other “mental” drugs). If it isn’t stopped in its tracks now this is your future!

Everyone already knows (or should know) that MMJ itself helps to combat addiction to most everything…. GW PHARMA has already concluded in their advertisment that Cannabis (Sativex) is NOT ADDICTING…. So why are they doing all of this??? To protect commerce and convince you that they are only helping you. What a crock of shit….

The Washington Times reported on 6/26/15 that the Federal Government is “fast tracking” Pharma research for a Marijuana addiction drug. The research gets $3 million grant as Obama encourages legalization of Cannabis.

This is just too much! We do not need a “drug” to detoxify us from Cannabis! We need more Hemp and Cannabis Oil for Medical use,

Stop the funding effective immediately and give that $3 Million to a better cause.

Fact: GW Pharma has concluded that “Cannabis is not addictive” according to their ad for SATIVEX (which has not been approved for marketing in the U.S. as of yet — And SHOULD BE!). It additionally states that it does not appear to have withdrawal effects when stopped suddenly”…

Stop the INSANITY NOW! Stop the funding for an addiction drug for Cannabis!

The National Institutes of Health is dedicating $3 million to fast-track the development of drugs to treat marijuana addiction — an estimated 4.2 million Americans are hooked on cannabis — even as the president encourages its legalization and more states look to enact laws for its recreational use.

“Cannabis use is an increasing public health concern in the United States that requires immediate attention,” reads the government’s grant proposal, issued in May. “Given the high prevalence of marijuana use and its associated disorders and the large number of people who seek treatment, there is a critical need to discover and develop safe and effective treatments for [cannabis use disorders].”

The National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse plan to award $3 million to fund three projects aimed at fast-tracking research on drugs to help curb marijuana abuse, and the Food and Drug Administration has not approved any medications to treat pot addiction.

In its proposal, the National Institute on Drug Abuse states that marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug, with an estimated 2.4 million people trying it for the first time last year, and has the highest number of Americans dependent on or abusing it.

The institute’s call for research seems to divert from policies touted by the Obama administration, which has been the most progressive in history allowing for marijuana use.

In March, President Obama said he was “encouraged” by efforts at the state level to allow greater access to marijuana. In an interview with The New Yorker last year, he said, “I don’t think [marijuana] is more dangerous than alcohol.”

During Mr. Obama’s tenure, the Department of Justice said it would not prosecute or enforce laws against the production and sale of marijuana at the state level. To date, 23 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws allowing pot to be used for a variety of medical conditions. Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and the District of Columbia have permitted recreational use of pot.

The administration’s most recent move loosening the federal restrictions on weed was made Monday, when it lifted a bureaucratic requirement for those wishing to conduct scientific research on the drug.

For committing $3 million in taxpayer money to find a treatment to a drug that the administration is looking to make more accessible, the National Institute on Drug Abuse gets this week’s Golden Hammer, The Washington Times’ weekly distinction highlighting waste, fraud and abuse — or in this case hypocrisy — in the federal government.

“The public discourse has shifted in recent years to only want to talk about the benefits of marijuana. But addiction is the huge elephant in the room that many lawmakers want to sweep under the carpet,” said Kevin Sabet, who served in the Obama administration as senior adviser at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. “The problem is huge and, as marijuana becomes more legal, we’re going to be seeing it more often.”

According to a study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, the number of heavy marijuana users has increased sevenfold in the U.S. since its lowest point in 1992. Although the heavy marijuana users represent only about 2 percent of the U.S. population, daily and near-daily marijuana users consume 80 percent of the marijuana in the country.

“The entire medical community is aware of marijuana addiction and how big a problem it is,” said Dr. Stuart Gitlow, a former president at the American Society of Addiction Medicine. “If we go back to the time of Prohibition — from a public health standpoint it was an enormous success, there was a per capita drop in the consumption of alcohol, in accidents related to alcohol, and liver disease was reduced by two-thirds. After it ended, all of these stats went back to where they were before.”

He predicted similar results as marijuana prohibition eases.

“Ending the prohibition of marijuana, what we’ll see is a dramatic increase in its use and the total number of people affected by issues like intoxication and addiction,” he said.

Mr. Gitlow estimates that 15 percent to 20 percent of youths and 10 percent of adults who try marijuana will become addicted to it. Qualities commonly associated with pot addiction are apathy, loss of concentration, paranoia and increased likelihood of psychosis, which leads to increased psychiatric admissions, he said.

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